What To Do When There's Too Much To Do (6 page)

Be crystal clear.
Be straightforward when turning someone down; say no when you mean no. Don't couch your rejection in obscure terms or beat around the bush; just say no in a direct way, so you don't have to repeat yourself because you confused someone. Your answer should be clear to any reasonable person, and you don't need to argue.

Don't worry too much about their feelings.
Some people take a turndown as a blow to their self-esteem. This is not your problem. Your goal is to reduce your commitment level, not to help others reduce theirs—and that's exactly what they're attempting when they ask you to take on their tasks. Don't let pity overwhelm your common sense; unless something awful and unfair has happened, you can't afford to feel sorry for everyone and everything. Just because they've let something blow up into a crisis doesn't mean it's your crisis—unless you take it on.

Everyone wants to be the nice person in the office … well, maybe not the curmudgeon over there in the corner. But you can take a cue from him, because he's not afraid to say no. You can't be afraid either, or others won't hesitate to lay claim to whatever pieces of your time they can grab. I assure you, once you become known as an “easy mark,” people will tap you for help more and more often, until you're completely snowed under. That doesn't make you valuable—it makes you a sucker. So in the long run, it's a better idea to stick to your guns and learn to say no clearly, so you can maintain your workload (not to mention your sanity) at a viable level. Then you won't
become
the curmudgeon in the corner.

An important part of working in the professional world is collaboration and teamwork. Meetings, appointments, and conference calls are essential in making this happen. Unfortunately, meetings are among the worst time-stealers in corporate America. It seems that the more “important” (or higher-level) a person is within an organization's hierarchy, the more time is spent in meetings.

Unfortunately, many meetings really don't do much, other than use up valuable time. Exceptions exist, and some leaders run them well—but most do not. You'd have a hard time eliminating meetings entirely, since they're a staple in the corporate culture. However, if you're going to perform at your productive best, you definitely have to apply the “less is more” concept to meetings.

You need to find a way to spend
more
time working and less time in meetings. You can accomplish just about everything done in a meeting more efficiently in another format. For example, you might use e-mail for status updates and report distribution. In fact, a well-crafted e-mail is often as effective as a sit-down meeting. So why do we waste our time with face time?

I do think in-person meetings have some valid uses. Work is done and decisions are made in meetings. They're helpful when introducing new people working together at the beginning of a project. Meetings are also valuable for hashing problems out, brainstorming, and making joint decisions—the only reason you may need to meet for more than a few minutes.

Otherwise, I'm about 90 percent convinced that the biggest reason people call meetings is so the meeting holder can feel important. I'm also about 90 percent convinced the biggest reason people attend those meetings is so
they
can feel
important. After all, if you're invited to the meeting, you're important. Right?

As in so many other workplace situations, the simple word “no” truly comes in handy here. Let's try it out in a meeting invitation scenario:

Bob: “Joe, I need you to come to the meeting on interdepartmental cooperation.”

Your answer: “Why?”

Bob: “We need someone to represent your department's point of view.”

Here it is, the perfect opportunity! Tell the meeting holder, “Thanks for asking me, but no. My schedule is already full. Can you e-mail me a synopsis afterward?”

Granted, this probably isn't going to work with your boss, but it probably
will
work in most other cases. Base your decisions on whether or not the meeting will help accomplish your goals. If it doesn't, why should you go?

The meetings you do attend should be results-oriented and limited in frequency. They must also stick to the stated agenda without going off on tangents. Before you step inside, decide how much time you can invest in the meeting, and make it clear to the other participants at the beginning. If the meeting runs over schedule, you're justified in leaving. At each meeting, strive to arrange for e-mail or telephone follow-up, rather than scheduling yet another meeting to report on your progress.

Rather than waste time on meetings, distribute necessary information via e-mail, phone calls, and other media.

Do you find it's nearly impossible to get five or more attendees together at the same time? When key players are overbooked, it can take hours just to schedule a single meeting. Here are three questions you should ask yourself before calling a meeting and inviting a bunch of people:

1.
Do we really need all these people?
Make sure you aren't inviting anyone who doesn't need to have a seat at the table. Not only does it make scheduling more difficult, but you'll either (a) waste others' time or (b) bend over backwards to accommodate someone who isn't going to show up anyway. Don't worry about hurting someone's feelings; they'll be thrilled to not have to attend.

2.
Can we keep people in the loop without inviting them to every meeting?
Some meetings are full of wallflowers who need to know what's going on but don't necessarily need to contribute. Publishing meeting minutes or distributing essential information electronically can save time and shorten the attendee list. Also, find out if some departments are sending multiple representatives. By choosing a single person from each department, you can make sure everyone is represented without having everyone in the room. Need some more incentive to drop people from the attendee list? Take the approximate hourly salary of each attendee and calculate the cost of the meeting. The meeting may cost thousands of dollars!

3.
Do we need to meet at all?
This is a question you should ask about every meeting, not just the hard-to-schedule ones. Any meeting that doesn't have a clear objective—or better yet, a formal agenda—should be on the chopping block.

Be selective about time-hungry commitments like meetings, so you can free up time for other priorities. Remember, our goal for this workflow process is to achieve more while
doing less. This requires an active commitment to reducing the amount you do each day. Paring down your time spent in meetings will leave you with more time to tackle your HIT list—what really matters in the long run. The quicker you can attack your HIT list, the quicker you can call it a day and enjoy all the other things life has to offer.

When you're attempting to gain control of your time usage, it's often the little moments that count. Specifically, one moment: the second you think to yourself, “Okay … what should I do next?” In that space of time, you choose to be productive … or not.

We face many such moments in the course of each day. If someone cuts you off in traffic, you choose—in a split second—whether to flip him off or to apply the brake. If your partner is in a foul mood and says something snippy to you, you'll take a second to inhale and decide in that moment to decide whether to escalate the conversation or say something soothing. It doesn't matter whether you're angry or not; in fact, you probably still are. But you're going to make a purposeful choice about what to do next.

The same is true in time management. Think about the everyday decisions you make in a split second—decisions that would seem inconsequential if you thought about them at all, but that might lead you toward or away from using your time wisely. For example, do you:

• Open a word processor and write an impactful article for a blog, organization newsletter, or client … OR open Outlook and spend time messing around with your e-mail?

• Dive into that spreadsheet and do difficult brain work … OR pick up the phone and call a friend?

• Rehearse for an important presentation next week … OR research airfare options for your next vacation?

It's astonishingly easy to choose the unproductive option, simply because we're human. It's tempting to take a mental vacation and do a fun task, instead of the difficult one requiring brainpower and focus. However, the results are vastly different. On the one hand is a day filled with activity; on the other, a day filled with accomplishment. Remember, they're not necessarily synonymous.

Making the correct choice “in the moment” requires a three-step process:

1.
Clarity.
You have to know, in advance, what your priorities are for the day. Without a complete list of choices, you won't have an accurate answer to the question “what's next?” If you don't have a HIT list, any choice will get you “there,” but “there” may actually be
nowhere
. If you already have a plan, you can execute toward it much more efficiently.

2.
Discernment.
Assuming you know your priorities, judgment is the next step. At the exact moment you choose which fork in the road to take, evaluate which alternative will result in a better outcome (P1–P4). Checkmarks on a list aren't equal; they have weight. If you could see results, one checkmark might look like a faint pencil mark, and another a broad stroke with a marker.

3.
Discipline.
Once you make a choice between alternatives, self-control determines the outcome. Do you actually follow through on your good decisions? If you told yourself, “I should work on my strategic plan,” what would you do next: open the document, or open Facebook?

Before you take a break between tasks, consider how long that choice may take you away from your work—and how it will affect your momentum.

This three-step process can make the difference between a productive outcome, with results you're proud of, and an unproductive one, where you feel like banging your head against the wall for yet another wasted day. These decision dilemmas happen to us hundreds of times a day. Choose wisely!

Once you've identified the critical few tasks you should focus on, you'll need to find the time to do them. This process requires careful scheduling, whereby you assign appropriate time slots and durations for each appointment and task. In addition, you must make decisions quickly, learn to say no to unwelcome work, and control your meetings.

Time management isn't really time management, but self-management—your willingness to stop misusing time in ways that limit your productivity. In pursuit of this effort, establish routines to help you keep moving forward, and set realistic deadlines to decide when and how to accomplish each task.

Once you've established a deadline for a particular task, calculate how much time you must work on the task each day. Then fit the time into your schedule according to the task's priority, using the triage system from
Chapter 1
. Emergencies and other crises aside, tasks generally fall into three scheduling categories:

• “Have-to” items required by your job

• Routine daily tasks

• Items from your HIT list

Further reduce your commitments in any way possible: by asking yourself and others, “How long will this take?” for each task; by applying the “availability caching” concept; and by turning down any work that you don't want or can't handle. Many of us have trouble turning people down, but you should
learn to do so effectively, so people won't take advantage of you. Follow these guidelines:

• Say no in an upbeat, positive way.